Radian may be one of Boston’s latest architectural marvels adorning the skyline, but its living spaces only scratch the innovative surface. Sure, the luxury apartments are lavishly pristine, offer plenty of space in which to stretch your legs, and are accompanied by a next-generation fitness studio and communal lounge. But Radian also doubles as an unofficial, local art gallery.
I was lucky enough to take a tour of Radian with Noam Ron of the Hudson Group, one of the building’s chief developers, who not only guided me from the ground floor up to the penthouse, but along the way pointed out a handful of nearly hundreds of pieces of art sourced by artists with a direct tie to Greater Boston.
Radian sits at 120 Kingston Street which is also at the confluence of the Financial District, Chinatown and the Leather District. The Rose Kennedy Greenway’s southernmost park, the Chinatown Park, lies along the base of the building.
This particular location has allowed Ron and his constituent developers to tap into a Boston community, teeming with budding artists and free-flowing imagination. Erecting a structure that didn’t incorporate this pooling creativity, he told me, was simply out of the question.
In essence, the entire interior is a canvas ripe for many of Massachusetts’ best artists to electrify.
“In some ways it was a no-brainer,” said Ron. “We’re a local developer so we have a network here. In a sense, it was sort of a small gesture to bring the community in. It’s compelling to be able to have that connection with the city and with the art community.”
Though everything from the furniture to the convex windows in each of Radian’s 240 apartments can be considered art – and rightfully so – the real eye-grabber is in the lobby.
The 15-minute looped video dubbed Half & Half & Honey by Alyson Denny is an exploration of vibrant colors, crystalized solutions and textural liquids.
The clip was created by Denny, who traces her local roots back to Harvard, by layering half & half, and honey as the title alludes, in various liquids to create a diffusion effect. The speed is slowed down and Denny manipulates the colors to produce a revolving display of peculiar shapes, sizes and compositions that incite an abstract type of thinking.
What’s even better about the video is that it’s projected on the lobby wall which, while perhaps not the most luminescent video by day, illuminates the window by evening and serves to engage passersby. This type of radiant and abstract work was absolutely intentional, Ron told me, and helps bring a sense of intimacy to a lobby that’s not quite as illustrious as major metropolitan hotels.
“The idea was to stick with a lot of abstractions to avoid graphic things or things that might be construed as political,” Ron continued. “It feels a little more timeless if it’s not a portrait or a piece that seems to get old as you walk by it.”
After all, people could easily hop, skip and jump past Radian’s foyer on multiple occasions without seeing the same frame of the video more than once.
As is the case with the lobby, the upper-level hallways and living spaces are emblazoned with foundational tones – mostly blacks, whites and grays. In essence, the entire interior is a canvas ripe for many of Massachusetts’ best artists to electrify.
On our way to the elevator, Ron and I pass a popping-purple work of the tactile variety. Titled Wild Orchids by Massachusetts College of Art graduate Iris Lee Marcus, the piece is comprised of pulled paints and polymers that just aches to be grazed by a passing hand.
Next to the elevator hands, two photographs – the medium of choice being Polaroid 20 X 24 Color Positive Prints. As it just so happens, the Polaroid 20 X 24 camera used to produce these pieces is just one of five remaining in the world. Called Moiré Pull by Ellen Carey, a graduate of the School of The Museum of Fine Arts, the stretched color effect is created through a one-step, peel away process not unlike traditional Polaroids. It’s something that anyone from Andy Warhol to your everyday Instagram user will stop to gaze deeply at.
On the opposing wall sits one of several works that span all the way up to the 25th floor. Invoking a nostalgic feeling of July 4th sparklers, each painted pieces of aluminum is a variation of one another, helping to interconnect each floor.
On the fifth floor is what’s called the Resident’s Lounge, which is exactly what it sounds like – an open space with a television, plenty of furniture and art projects that can be adapted to a corporate meeting room, family dining room, or kept as a lounge.
It’s what’s on the ceiling, though, that makes this room truly impressive.
Situated near the windows, overlooking the Leather District, are two ceiling clusters of letters in an Art Deco-style typography. The letters double as art and artifact of Boston yore, no real surprise given that Radian basically occupies what was once the center of Boston’s manufacturing industry.
The plot of land upon which it sits was actually the former home of the Dainty Dot Hosiery building. A longtime testament to Boston’s textile past, the old brick and beam building was torn down but the letters salvaged. What once looked like this, now looks like what’s below, though the font the letters were produced still look and feel as modern today as they during the turn of the 19th century.
In all, Radian boasts just shy of 100 original works of Boston artists. By combing modern technologies and a contemporary art foundation, Ron and his team were able to source various pieces of local art with no limit to what they might choose. Every single work is distinct in color scheme and scope, running the gamut of the art scene here in our small corner of New England.
And they’re not stopping with the interior. Ron told me that they’re working with the conservationists over at the Rose Kennedy Greenway to try and add more programming and events, not to mention public art installations, to the Chinatown Park which, by admission, I didn’t even know was part of the Greenway. (Often people think the Greenway ends at Dewey Square, moored by its overlooking mural and farmers’ markets.)
“We’re meeting regularly with the Greenway,” mentioned Ron. “We hope to pull some activity from Dewey Square over to radian, Whether its public art, the Greenway has aspirations of their own to grow that, we’d love to help. We’re hoping the restaurant [on the ground floor] will activate the patio and pill onto the Greenway to spur more public art and seating.”
Images via Radian
